Astronomers have found an asteroid that appears to be on a collision course with Earth. It has been described as the most threatening object yet detected in space.
A preliminary orbit suggests that 2002 NT7 could strike the planet on February 1st, 2019.
Astronomers have given NT7 a threat rating on the Palermo technical scale of 0.06, making it the first object to be given a positive value.
Although they say it merits attention, they expect more observations to show it is not on an Earth-intersecting trajectory.
The asteroid is estimated to be about two kilometres wide, large enough to cause continent-wide devastation on Earth.
It was first seen on the night of July 5th by the Linear Observatory's automated sky survey programme in New Mexico.
Dr Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University, told BBC News Online: "This asteroid has now become the most threatening object in the short history of asteroid detection."
But he added: "This unique event should not diminish the fact that additional observations in coming weeks will almost certainly - we hope - eliminate the current threat."
Dr Donald Yeomans, from the US space agency's (Nasa) Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said: "The error in our knowledge of where NT7 will be on February 1, 2019, is large, several tens of millions of kilometres."
PA